XmlElementAttribute.DataType Property

 

Gets or sets the XML Schema definition (XSD) data type of the XML element generated by the XmlSerializer.

Namespace:   System.Xml.Serialization
Assembly:  System.Xml (in System.Xml.dll)

Public Property DataType As String

Property Value

Type: System.String

An XML Schema data type, as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3.org) document named "XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes".

Exception Condition
Exception

The XML Schema data type you have specified cannot be mapped to the.NET data type.

The following table lists the XML Schema simple data types with their.NET equivalents.

For the XML Schema base64Binary and hexBinary data types, use an array of Byte structures, and apply a XmlElementAttribute with the DataType set to "base64Binary" or "hexBinary", as appropriate. For the XML Schema time and date data types, use the DateTime type and apply the XmlElementAttribute with the DataType set to "date" or "time".

For every XML Schema type that is mapped to a string, apply the XmlElementAttribute with its DataType property set to the XML Schema type. It is possible that this can change the serialization format, not only the schema for the member.

System_CAPS_noteNote

The property is case-sensitive, so you must set it exactly to one of the XML Schema data types.

System_CAPS_noteNote

Passing binary data as an XML element is more efficient than passing it as an XML Schema attribute.

For more information about XML data types, see the World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3.org) document named "XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes".

XSD data type

.NET data type

anyURI

String

base64Binary

Array of Byte objects

boolean

Boolean

byte

SByte

date

DateTime

dateTime

DateTime

decimal

Decimal

double

Double

ENTITY

String

ENTITIES

String

float

Single

gDay

String

gMonth

String

gMonthDay

String

gYear

String

gYearMonth

String

hexBinary

Array of Byte objects

ID

String

IDREF

String

IDREFS

String

int

Int32

integer

String

language

String

long

Int64

Name

String

NCName

String

negativeInteger

String

NMTOKEN

String

NMTOKENS

String

normalizedString

String

nonNegativeInteger

String

nonPositiveInteger

String

NOTATION

String

positiveInteger

String

QName

XmlQualifiedName

duration

String

string

String

short

Int16

time

DateTime

token

String

unsignedByte

Byte

unsignedInt

UInt32

unsignedLong

UInt64

unsignedShort

UInt16

The following example serializes a class named Group that contains a field named ExtraInfo, which returns an ArrayList. The example applies two instances of the XmlElementAttribute to the field and specifies different DataType values for each instance. Each instance enables the XmlSerializer to serialize the specified types inserted into the array.

Imports System
Imports System.Collections
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Xml.Serialization


Public Class Group
    ' Apply two XmlElementAttributes to the field. Set the DataType
    ' to string and int to allow the ArrayList to accept
    ' both types. The Namespace is also set to different values
    ' for each type. 
    <XmlElement(DataType := "string", _
        Type := GetType(String), _
        Namespace := "http://www.cpandl.com"), _
     XmlElement(DataType := "int", _                    
        Type := GetType(Integer), _
        Namespace := "http://www.cohowinery.com")> _
    Public ExtraInfo As ArrayList
End Class


Public Class Run

    Public Shared Sub Main()
        Dim test As New Run()
        test.SerializeObject("ElementTypes.xml")
    End Sub    

    Public Sub SerializeObject(filename As String)
        ' A TextWriter is needed to write the file.
        Dim writer As New StreamWriter(filename)

        ' Create the XmlSerializer using the XmlAttributeOverrides.
        Dim s As New XmlSerializer(GetType(Group))

        ' Create the object to serialize.
        Dim myGroup As New Group()

        ' Add a string and an integer to the ArrayList returned
        ' by the ExtraInfo field. 
        myGroup.ExtraInfo = New ArrayList()
        myGroup.ExtraInfo.Add("hello")
        myGroup.ExtraInfo.Add(100)

        ' Serialize the object and close the TextWriter.
        s.Serialize(writer, myGroup)
        writer.Close()
    End Sub
End Class

Universal Windows Platform
Available since 8
.NET Framework
Available since 1.1
Portable Class Library
Supported in: portable .NET platforms
Silverlight
Available since 2.0
Windows Phone Silverlight
Available since 7.0
Windows Phone
Available since 8.1
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